I found a DONE5 that worked really well for an unexpected sabbatical (layoff). I used the One World web site, went through the painful process of selecting dates and changing nearly every segment (since it never seemed to pick the preferred ones) and came up with a price I was willing to pay. I put it on "hold" and the email I received says to call American since the trips starts on AA 83 LAX to AKL. But the AA EXP agent says it's a travel agent ticket and they can't help me. I have to position myself in LAX since it seems to want me to fly SFO-PHX-LAX or SFO-DFW-LAX and that makes no sense. Apparently it can't book the Compass flights or something.

Are there better ways to put this together? It's too complex to book on AA.com and in fact their multi-city links you back to the same One World page I already used.

I'm excited about the trip since I have four weeks for the first time in my life. I'll get to 5 new countries and will have touched every continent but Antarctica once I'm done. Also, I get a nice long ride on the B788, my first A380 segment and my first QF and IB segments.